University of Tennessee Athletics
Eve Rackham Introductory Press Conference
January 11, 2018 | Volleyball
Phillip Fulmer, Director of Athletics
Opening Statement:"Good afternoon to everyone. This is an exciting day for UT Athletics and our Volleyball program. We have a new member of our athletics family, who is an outstanding coach and person.
"I should first say a special thank you to Angie Boyd-Keck, who you will hear from in just a minute, and Reid Sigmon, who took the lead and did an outstanding and a very thorough job on a national search. I appreciate their expertise, commitment and professionalism. We have made a commitment to volleyball with our facilities and support, and now a new era begins!Â
"Everything we do is about our student-athletes. It was great to feel the support of the young ladies on the volleyball team when we had a chance to meet with them yesterday and talk to them about their coach. Now, it is a matter of going to work everyday to be the best in this outstanding conference we play in, in the classroom, and in our community.
"I met with Eve a few days ago, and yesterday, I met with all of our head coaches collectively. All of our head coaches understand that we should be competing for or in the mix for SEC Championships. If you do that, you are also in the mix on the national level.
"Angie & Eve will work together every day. I will be here to support her along the way as well. With that, I would like Angie to welcome and introduce Eve."
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Angie Boyd-Keck, Associate Athletics Director for Finance & Sport Administration
Opening Statement:"Thank you, Coach Fulmer. Thank you for your guidance and active role you played throughout this process. He is definitely still a recruiter. I also want to thank Reid Sigmon and Donna Thomas for their roles in this process as well and last but certainly not least, I want to thank our volleyball team. You're a special group.
"We approached this search seeking the coach who was the best fit and the right person to lead our program back to championship contention while operating with integrity and displaying a genuine caring and warmth for the student-athletes under their leadership. During the interview process, it became apparent that Eve Rackham was an obvious choice. Eve showed a passion and plan that we could all appreciate and get excited about. We are committed to surrounding our student-athletes with quality coaches who will work side by side with them to help them be the very best version of themselves. I can assure you the young women in our volleyball program will be in good hands with Eve Rackham.
"Eve spent the past nine years on staff at North Carolina, where she herself was an All-ACC and All-Region performer on the court. She has served as the assistant head coach since 2013 and was the AVCA Assistant Coach of the Year in 2014.
"In 14 seasons of collegiate coaching, she has produced 18 All-Americans. Since 2014, she held the role of assistant head coach, recruiting coordinator and offensive strategist. Eve has also managed camps, video exchange, travel, scheduling, budget management and community outreach. She knows firsthand what is required.
"Recruiting is obviously critical to the success of any program. Eve has distinguished herself as elite in this area. She signed 17 top-100 prospects between 2011-17 and she put together two top-10 recruiting classes in the past six years.
"We have been fortunate enough to successfully recruit Eve to Tennessee. She has had many other opportunities, but I am extremely happy that she chose Tennessee. It is with great enthusiasm that I introduce our new head volleyball coach, Eve Rackham."
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Eve Rackham, Tennessee Volleyball Head Coach
Opening Statement:Â"I am incredibly excited and honored to be the new head volleyball coach at the University of Tennessee. This is an amazing place with great people who have been so welcoming and warm. Knoxville is an unbelievable city. I'm just so excited to finally be here. Thank you to athletics director Phillip Fulmer, Angie Boyd-Keck, Donna Thomas, Reid Sigmon. All of whom have been unbelievable in the process and really welcoming and patient while I make this really difficult decision. I also want to thank some of the people I want to thank who I have worked for. Jenna Panatier, Danijela Tomic, and of course Joe Sagula, who not only I played under, but have coached with for the last nine years. All of them who have helped prepared me for this next step in my career. Tennessee Volleyball is a program with great potential. Rob Patrick laid a foundation that I hope to build on and believe that we can. This is a great place, and we are going to do great things. This is a place that was in a Final Four in 2005. We won a SEC Championship as recently as 2011. We have a great group of girls who are ready to get to work. They are eager and excited to improve. I am also looking forward to building a championship culture where we can build strong women and confident women and just ready to get to work with everybody. Lastly, I just want to say that I am truly humble to be at the same university where Pat Summit was a coach. I never had a chance to meet her or work at the same time. As a female coach, she has really been an inspiration to so many of us and showed that women can really build championship programs."Â
On her plan for Tennessee:
"I need to get in the gym with the kids and see where we are at. We have a lot of work to do. I have watched film of the girls and I have a good starting point. I need to get a staff in place and get to work. It is going to take some time, but we have the pieces here, and then it is about recruiting and getting the highest level athlete to come to Tennessee and building from there."
On her first head coaching opportunity:
"When I started coaching, I always knew that I was going to be a head coach, but for me it was a matter of where and not if. After this season, I felt like I was going to look, but I was only going to leave for the right place. There was no doubt, when this job came open, that this was the place I wanted to be where I felt like I could be successful or I felt like the resources where there and where they cared about female athletics and they wanted to see a program rise and I felt like I could build on what was already there."
On going to North Carolina and dealing with pressure there:
"To be honest, I don't know if I ever felt pressure. I'm competitive, I want to win, and I changed positions because that's what the team needed me to do. I just wanted to win in any way that we could. I moved across the country, so that was a culture shock for me. Moving from northern California to North Carolina was a big change, but that's what recruiting will do. Coach laid out a good plan for me, I made the decision, it was a great decision, and I had a great experience."Â
On what needs to be done to get Tennessee back to being a tournament team:
"I think the talent is here. I've watched the film, and I know the girls that are here have the talent to do it. And they were close last year, we had a 5-13 SEC record, and there were five matches that we lost in five. So if you turn that around and you win those five really close matches, we're 10-8 and the season looks a whole lot different. We have to get to work, there's some things we need to change and some system things we need to work on, but in terms of the talent, I think it's here, and like I said, we'll build form there with new recruits."
On what prepared her to be a head coach while she was at North Carolina and what her recruiting footprint will be like:
"I was at North Carolina a long time, and I was with a head coach that's been doing it for over 30 years. So I've kind of covered everything there is to cover in coaching. I think from a recruiting footprint, the good thing about Tennessee is that it's a university that everybody knows, it has a national brand, and we can go anywhere. I believe the best players in the state of Tennessee should come to the University of Tennessee, so that's where we'll look first, but I think we can reach out to the west coast, we can get players from the Midwest, we can recruit in Texas and in Florida. I'm not concerned about that, I know this place will sell itself."
On if her time at North Carolina influence the type of player she recruits:Â
"Recruiting has changed. Especially in the last five to six years, we're recruiting younger and younger. So in a way it's changed a bit, but I think the big thing for me is first and foremost I want kids with a ton of passion, who love to play. I went to the facility yesterday to meet with the team, and the girls were in there, and I thought that was a great first sign. I want kids who love to play, and not just when it's the first day of preseason, I'm talking about on a Wednesday in October after a midterm. Are you still excited to play? So obviously there's a certain talent level and physical level that we're looking for, but when you talk about those intangible things, I want kids with a lot of passion who want to compete, who want to play hard, and want to play for the team."
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